Which video card do you use?

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Hot tips to improve your computer.

Find a well enough incomed youngster (someone working a real job between 17 and 25 works best). Best if you find a single person as well.

Become friends by being useful in non computer capacities (I choose to employ woodworking skills).

Next and most important, keep pace with their computer upgrades.

When he upgrades attempt to look pathetic using equipment he thought was lousy 2 years ago.

Hey it will not do your pride any good, but hmm it didn't hurt to get a new sound card out of his box of cards he could care less about hehe

After all, he is only able to sit in front of one computer at a time. He won't need that "old" card he had for all of 4 months.

[Blunderbuss]

Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who falls into that category. When the time comes for an upgrade I'll probably have to send my PC off to one of several computer shops that have sprung up here in recent months.

I think my system IS unbalanced. The video card and hard drive don't really match up to the processor and memory in terms of quality. I don't know the difference between a good motherboard and a poor one.

Anyway, here it is:-

Medion MD5000 motherboard (Max Memory 1 Gb)
P4 2.66 Ghz (533 Mhz Front Side Bus)
512 DDR RAM (333 Mhz)
Seagate 60Gb HD at 5400 RPM
Radeon 9000LE 64 Mb

[BrubakerII]

Originally posted by moore4807
The motherboard makes all the difference to me...

This is certainly the best advice I could give as well. If nothing else buy a top line MB because everything else can be upgraded around it if need be. A good MB is somewhat futureproof - if that is possible in this industry - at least compared to other items. It is certainly true also that a good MB will make lesser items seemingly perform better. Too often you can buy a whole system quite cheaply but they will use the cheapest possible board that their 'advertised' processor will run on and the whole system becomes a dog!

Brubaker

[Ian Packham]

Originally posted by moore4807
I dont think they even sell 2.8Ghz with less than 333 FSB. I understand the overclocking aspect but since you cant overclock more than 33%-66% of the hertz (think heat...) then why not spend the extra $50-100 and get the 533/800 FSB. Its really not worth the aggravation for the small increase in speed (you can get 3.06Ghz by my quick mental math) and still only be pushing a 400 FSB.

The motherboard makes all the difference to me...

by the way GeForce3 TI4200 128mb card....

Actually we are talking about the same chip - the new Pentiums run at 200MHz but the channels are quad pumped to arrive at 800MHz FSB. So I will be buying the P2.8Gig 800 FSB.

I don't overdue my overclocking so as not to shorten the lifespan of the chip. Both of my previous chips (P200, P667) were both overclocked by 12.5% and both still run fine (I sold my old P200 to a friend and its still going strong). So if I overclock again by about 12.5% then I will end up with 3.15Gig - which is close to the top release of 3.2Gig but saving myself $400.

Intel wont be releasing a faster P4 chip than 3.2Gig. Their next release will be the 64bit P5 which will debut at 3.4Gig later this year.

I might consider a 128MB video card, but definitely not 256MB which is completely unnecessary and makes no difference to performance.

[Ian Packham]

Originally posted by Blunderbuss
Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who falls into that category. When the time comes for an upgrade I'll probably have to send my PC off to one of several computer shops that have sprung up here in recent months.

I think my system IS unbalanced. The video card and hard drive don't really match up to the processor and memory in terms of quality. I don't know the difference between a good motherboard and a poor one.

Anyway, here it is:-

Medion MD5000 motherboard (Max Memory 1 Gb)
P4 2.66 Ghz (533 Mhz Front Side Bus)
512 DDR RAM (333 Mhz)
Seagate 60Gb HD at 5400 RPM
Radeon 9000LE 64 Mb

Its not too bad from where I am standing. I don't know that particular motherboard but the other stats look good. Don't worry too much about the average HD since you have got plenty of RAM which should lessen access to the HD during gameplay. Also with 60GB, you should always go for full installations. The RAM also works at the correct Mhz for the P4 533FSB so there are no bottlenecks being created in the BUS channels. The video card is good enough for all the current games being released, unless you want to run games with FSAA or at high resolutions over 1024x768. I would say your rig can last 2 years before you need to upgrade again.

One thing I will say about the motherboard is that when I look at hardware reviews there is usually very little difference between boards with similar specs (typically under 5% variance) so it does not matter which board you purchase so long as it supports the hardware features you are employing - eg. 200Mhz FSB (to support the new chips from Intel and AMD), dual 400DDR memory chips, AVP 4x etc.

[Mac_MatrixForum]

Originally posted by Ian Packham
Intel wont be releasing a faster P4 chip than 3.2Gig. Their next release will be the 64bit P5 which will debut at 3.4Gig later this year.

Uh, what is this 64 bits? Intel has said they wont make the transition for years and that kind of bomb is out of the question for Prescott. Or do you have some inside info ?

Sorry I'm such a nitpicker.

[Ian Packham]

I must be getting confused, I thought Prescott was 64bit and was Intel's answer to the Athlon 64 and G5?

Reading the article again it looks like Prescott has 64bit extensions (Yamhill) which will be unlocked later. Its all a bit confusing to me. How can a 32bit processor handle 64bit instructions?

Is the Athlon 64 also 32bit?

[Mac_MatrixForum]

Originally posted by Ian Packham
I must be getting confused, I thought Prescott was 64bit and was Intel's answer to the Athlon 64 and G5?

It's still an answer, but (only) 32 bit. It's not like the upcoming Apple G5 actually beats the current P4s or Athlons. Madison is the upcoming 64 bit Itanium and Deerfield is supposed to be a lower cost version of that. They wont be intended for desktops (former for heavy duty, latter for workstations). Athlon 64 however is intended for desktops (the already released Opteron for servers and workstations).

Reading the article again it looks like Prescott has 64bit extensions (Yamhill) which will be unlocked later. Its all a bit confusing to me. How can a 32bit processor handle 64bit instructions?

Theoretically speaking this (putting stuff that will be unlocked later) is possible but in practice it's rarely smart to add millions and millions of useless transistors to already huge silicon isn't it? That's most likely just crazy gossip. They sort of did that with Hyperthreading but we are talking about doubling a lot of stuff and it's not cheap. Intel doesn't think we need 32 bits now and for common desktops it's hardly a requirement for a couple years even if Athlon 64 works well as a catalyst.

Is the Athlon 64 also 32bit?

No, it is 64 bit but unlike for example the Intel Itanium it can run 32 bit applications natively at full speed. Therefore you do not have to get new applications. When 64 bit applications arrive you will slowly transfer to them for further increased performance and of course you can add more than 4 gigabytes of memory easily (there are uses for that) if you have a 64 bit OS installed.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

My sister has a fairly decent P4 system (for a Dell system). She told me when it's paid for, my son can have it as she will upgrade.

I suppose that is a good news bad news deal hehe.

Good news my son gets a computer that is fractionally better then mine. Bad news is of course my fractionally worse system has definitely better add ons dumped in it.

Good luck kiddo getting anything added in for games. Dell systems are modular hell. Oh well, it is a fine enough system now. And it will be just fine for homework.

[Ian Packham]

Originally posted by Mac
It's still an answer, but (only) 32 bit. It's not like the upcoming Apple G5 actually beats the current P4s or Athlons. Madison is the upcoming 64 bit Itanium and Deerfield is supposed to be a lower cost version of that. They wont be intended for desktops (former for heavy duty, latter for workstations). Athlon 64 however is intended for desktops (the already released Opteron for servers and workstations).

It will be interesting to see how the 32bit Pentium Prescott chips compete against the Athlon 64.

Since it will probably be 2 years before we see much 64bit software emerging for desktop programs, it is somewhat pointless buying an Athlon 64 unless its new architecture provides a big performance boost over the Prescott chips for ordinary software, which I doubt will be the case. AMD may be jumping the gun here.

As for games, they will remain 32bit for a long time to come as they need to play to the general public. Only specialized software for business/art uses will have 64 bit instructions for the foreseeable future.

[Belisarius]

Back to the thread;

GeForce Ti 4200 /64MB ...on a 4xAGP slot.

I went with 64 rather than 128 since the 64 MB version has a faster core processor and faster memory bus which, in fact, makes it faster than the 128 MB card in most benchmark tests.

No problems with it so far. I usually run at 1152x864 since my old screen can't handle more. The card churns out a steady 30+ fps except when it has to load MASSIVE amounts of graphic files.

[junk2drive]

i just ordered an ati radeon 7000 64mb ddr agp 4x.
will it play CL ?

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I sure hope it will.

I have the older style PCI Radeon 7000 32 meg card and it is supposed to be what is required.

[AbsntMndedProf]

I'm not sure, but I think this is it:

IRQ 11 Intel(r) 82810E Graphics Controller 4.12.01.2604


So far, so good. However I am saving up for a new PC, probably in 6 months to a year from now. My HD is packed and I want one of those new machines with a 40-80 GB HD.

Eric Maietta